


034 "Vegas"

by wheel_pen



Series: Iron Man AU [34]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fish out of Water, My Pepper is different, Pre-Iron Man, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony, in an over-the-top act of self-centeredness (even for him), kidnaps Pepper and forces her to come to Las Vegas with him for a conference. As they walk through the hotel’s casino lobby, he quickly discovers why she’s found it prudent to avoid the city in the past. “Could you get me a drink, Pepper? But don’t bother to put ice in it, just hold it in your hand for a minute.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	034 "Vegas"

**Author's Note:**

> 1) My Pepper is very different from canon Pepper. Her personality/origin is very different; to separate her from canon Pepper I've given her a new last name and a different hair color.
> 
> 2) The bad words are censored. That's just how I do things.
> 
> 3) Stories are numbered in the order I wrote them, which isn't necessarily the order in which they occur. At some point I'll post a timeline.
> 
> I wrote this series after the first Iron Man movie came out. It's very AU but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play with these characters.

            I like Vegas. It isn’t for everyone, although its ads would really like to convince you that it is. It’s big and loud and crowded and tacky and full of every vice you can possibly imagine. But my point is not to write an ode to Vegas. To be honest, although I _liked_ Vegas, it was really more Obadiah’s town, which you would understand if you ever saw the inside of his house. Personally I may be tacky, but I have an excellent sense of style. Obadiah’s houses always kind of looked like film-set brothels with animal prints and red velvet and fussy, crowded, heavy furniture. Dark and cluttered with no room to maneuver—always made me feel claustrophobic, like a fly in a spider’s web. And that’s certainly how a lot of Vegas hotels and casinos are built, too, disorienting mazes full of fake beauty and luxury. So while I enjoyed spending time there, it wasn’t a place I normally went by myself.

            But this wasn’t a pleasure trip, you see. This was for _business_. Obadiah and I were planning to put in an appearance at the big electronics expo held every year in Vegas—Stark Industries always had a booth to show off the non-military electronic inventions we came up with. So there would be some putting on the expensive suit and schmoozing with the execs from other companies while chatting up the diversification strategy that Obadiah hated, and then there would be some wandering the convention floor in my AC/DC t-shirt and geeking out over all the new gadgets. Not to mention the general delights of Vegas such as dancing, drinking, eating fantastic food, socializing with beautiful women, and a little bit of gambling. The stage was set for me to have an awesome time, as usual.

            Then Pepper threw a wrench into it.

            “What do you mean, you’re not going?”

            She looked up from the suitcase she was packing for me. “I told you this before,” she reminded me.

            I tossed my handheld video game aside and sat up straighter on the bed. This was serious. “I thought you were just kidding before,” I replied, my gaze following her across the room to my closet.

            “I wasn’t.”

            “Pepper, you can’t _not_ come to Vegas with me!” I protested. “Why aren’t you coming?”

            She came out of the closet carrying a stack of underwear. “I don’t really care for Las Vegas,” she answered vaguely. “Would you prefer boxers or boxer-briefs, sir?”

            “Half and half,” I decided. “Is that some kind of moral judgment?”

            “Well, it’s _your_ underwear, sir.”

            I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be cute, Pepper. You’ve been to Vegas before, haven’t you?”

            “Yes, sir,” she replied, carefully selecting and packing my underwear for me. “I went once during Spring Break, in college.”

            My eyes widened as I tried to picture this. “Oh my G-d, you did Spring Break in Vegas? Did you get hammered? Did you gamble away your plane ticket home? Did you wake up next to a couple of those dancers from Thunder from Down Under? Or contortionists from Cirque du Soleil? That’s happened to me before, I know how easy it is. You can admit it.”

            Pepper had gone to the closet again and returned during my questioning. “I simply didn’t care for it,” she repeated. “Do you want your socks that glow in the dark?”

            “No. Yes,” I told her. “But you’ve been to Vegas with _me_ , haven’t you, Pepper?” I tried to think back and picture her there.

            “No.”

            “You must have,” I countered. “My birthday parties? There’s at least three different conferences each year. And some award ceremony? You were there for _that_.”

            “No, I wasn’t,” she insisted patiently.

            I narrowed my eyes at her. “How’d you manage to squeak out of it each time?”

            She gave me a look. “Clearly my presence was not vital to your needs at the time, since you don’t even remember that I wasn’t there.”

            “Pepper, your presence is _very_ vital to my needs!” I told her. “How can you just say you aren’t coming? Isn’t that dereliction of duty?”

            “I’ll stay at the office and get work done there,” she told me, packing more items into the suitcase. “Which is what I usually do. In fact I’ll probably get _more_ work—“

            “What’s this? What are you packing?” I crawled up to the suitcase at the foot of the bed and started pawing through it. “Why are you packing this? I don’t like this.” I yanked out a folded t-shirt and flung it over my shoulder.

            Pepper retrieved it. “You just wore this last week.”

            “Yeah, well, that was last week,” I explained, tossing more clothes from the suitcase. “Don’t like _this_ , not _this_ , not _that_ —well, maybe that, give it back.” I took the shirt from her, wadded it up, and stuffed it back into the suitcase. “Last week I thought you were coming with me.”

            “My presence influences your wardrobe choice?” Pepper commented skeptically.

            “I hate these ties, they’re boring.” The colorful ribbons of silk fluttered around the room. “Get me the one from Rhodey, where it looks like a fish is about to bite my—“

            “Mr. Stane specified these ties,” Pepper reminded me, but I was in no mood to do what anyone else wanted, if I couldn’t even get Pepper to come to Vegas with me.

            “I can’t believe, in all the time you’ve been working for me, you’ve never been to Vegas with me,” I continued unhappily, picking things from the suitcase and tossing them around the room.

            Pepper hurriedly retrieved the items. “Did you not want to bring these, sir?” she asked.

            “I dunno. What are they?”

            “You’re the one who threw them out of your suitcase.”

            “Well, you’re the one who won’t come to Vegas with me.”

            Pepper gave me a narrow look. “So you’ve resorted to the level of a monkey throwing poo?”

            I gave _her_ a narrow look. “You know, I remember when you first started working for me, and it was all, ‘Yes, Mr. Stark’ and ‘Can I get you anything, Mr. Stark?’ and ‘Let me pamper and coddle you, Mr. Stark.’ And now you’re just mean.”

            “Unfortunately for you, that’s not grounds for dismissal,” she shot back, moving the near-empty suitcase to a table outside my reach so she could begin packing again.

            “Come on, Pepper, come to Vegas with me,” I whined. “They have great food there. Big buffets. I’ll talk to the management beforehand and you can just clean them out.” She wasn’t thawing. “And they have nightclubs! We’ll go dancing. You and I can dance the whole time. I won’t pick up another girl until we’re on the way out.”

            “You’ll drink too much and get in a fight,” she predicted.

            “No, I won’t! Well, maybe once.” This just wasn’t fair. How was I supposed to have any fun without Pepper? Who was going to get me where I needed to go and prep me for my presentations?

            “Who usually preps you, when I’m not there?” Pepper quizzed me.

            “I don’t know, some generic person in a suit,” I replied. “It could be anyone! A mole from a rival company, or a kidnapper.” Pepper did not seem impressed with my safety concerns. “Why don’t you like Vegas, Pepper?” I prodded, trying to sound more serious. “Is it too crowded? Too smoky? They’ve made a lot of improvements in air filtration over the last few years…”

            She paused, seemingly on the verge of a confession. “I just didn’t like all the blinking lights,” she finally said.

            “Blinking lights? I thought you would love those.”

            “There were too many.”

            This did not seem like reason enough to abandon me. “You really won’t come with me?”

            “No.”

            “Fine then.” I hopped off the bed and headed for the door, intent on seeking solace in my workshop. “By the way, I want to take the navy blue suitcase, not _that_ one,” I told her over my shoulder.

 

            Wary of Pepper’s mind-reading powers, I affected a petulant disposition all the way through the next morning as we rode to the airport with Obadiah and Joanna. This feat of acting was not exactly difficult, and I can’t say anyone thought I was behaving oddly.

            In reality, I had a plan.

            “Pepper, is there anything I can do to make you change your mind?” Obadiah finally asked on my behalf. “I’d rather not put up with this whiny-a-s brat the whole time.”

            “No, but thank you, Mr. Stane,” Pepper replied politely, poking at her phone. It had taken all my begging skills just to get her to agree to see me off at the airport, but of course once she was in the car we virtually ignored each other.

            “Make her come,” I insisted to Obadiah, poking him with my foot. “Tell her how much I need looking after.”

            “She said no, Tony,” Obadiah responded sternly, looking at me over the tops of his glasses. He brushed off the dust I had gotten on his leg. I mumbled something rude under my breath and bundled back up into my coat in the corner of the car. Getting up unnaturally early and setting out in the relatively cold weather had done much to get me in character for my ruse.

            Finally we reached the airfield and began loading the plane. It was Obadiah’s, not mine, which meant more seats and no stripper pole. Not that he didn’t _want_ a stripper pole or flight attendants who knew how to work it—he just didn’t think it was appropriate to have them. Not the kind of image he wanted to project.

            Clearly, I didn’t care about _my_ image. “Pepper! Please come with me. I’ll buy you new romance novels. A new dress. A new necklace. Please!” I pleaded while the luggage was put on.

            “Tony, you’re pathetic,” Obadiah told me unsympathetically. “It’s only a few days. And you certainly never missed her in the past.”

            I was kind of curious about that myself. All I could figure was that usually I was so sloshed by the time we left, and often afterwards, that I simply lost track of Pepper. I probably figured she was just in the next room. Obadiah had been trying to get me to knock back a couple at home before we left and also in the car, but I had resisted, saying I was on a booze strike until Pepper relented. Nobody seemed impressed with my civil disobedience.

            Joanna signaled that everything was ready to go. Normally all the passengers would have been on board at this point, but I was lingering on the tarmac to talk to Pepper and Obadiah was lingering to make sure I didn’t just leave with her and go back home.

            “Come here,” he told me, taking my arm and drawing me off to the side.

            “Hey! I haven’t said good-bye to Pepper yet!” I protested.

            “You can say good-bye in a minute,” he replied, and I sensed one of his not-so-peppy pep talks coming on. “Now listen to me. Stop being a little p---y, Tony. You’re gonna say good-bye and two minutes later you’re gonna get on that plane and I don’t want to hear one. Single. Word about Pepper for the entire trip, you understand? And do not try to pull any s—t like ditching the trip. Don’t even think about it. I will drag you onto this plane kicking and screaming like a five-year-old. Understand?”

            You know, Obadiah could be kind of scary sometimes.

            He patted my face with a cold smile. “Now go say good-bye to Pepper.” I wasted no time jogging away from him, keeping an eye on him as he climbed into the plane with Joanna.

            “So you’re really not coming with me, Pepper?” I said with resignation. “One last chance. I really need you.”

            “You’ll be fine, Mr. Stark,” she assured me. “You’ll have a good time and you can tell me all about it when you get home.”

            “You’re not mad at me, are you?” I asked. “I don’t want to leave with you being mad at me.”

            Pepper smiled. “No, I’m not mad.”

            “Promise?”

            “I promise.” She put her hand on my cheek then, the same way Obadiah had but with much better intentions.

            I saw the instant she knew what I was going to do, reflected right there in her eyes. But it was too late. I grabbed her waist, hauled her over my shoulder, and headed for the stairs of the plane.

            “Mr. Stark! Put me down!” Pepper demanded. “Your shoulder! Your heart!”

            This was after the whole skiing accident/drug overdose thing, so Pepper often worried that my body would simply crumble to dust at some exertion. Silly, really. “So glad you changed your mind, Ms. Smith,” I announced jauntily, over her protests. “Now, stop kicking, we’ll _both_ fall off these stairs. Mind your head. Put your feet down, this is a sharp turn.” I stuck my head into the cockpit. “Let’s go, boys!” The door shut with a thunk and the airplane noises increased.

            “All passengers, please take your seats,” a mechanical voice announced. “Please fasten your seatbelts for departure.”

            “Here you go, just take this seat right here,” I told Pepper, releasing her into one. “Let me get your seatbelt for you. You want it to be nice and tight, you know!”

            “Tony, did you just kidnap your assistant?” Obadiah demanded from several seats back.

            “You’re gonna have to turn this off,” I told Pepper, plucking the phone from her hand before she could call for help. “Wouldn’t want to crash the plane, you know.” The glare she gave me could have left ice on the inside of the windows. No, this was not a happy Pepper. But I figured she would get over it.

            The flight from San Francisco to Las Vegas was not long, but I still got bored. “Ha! I win!” I crowed, slapping down some cards on the table. “I am totally ready for the blackjack table.”

            “Yes, you’re quite brilliant,” Obadiah replied with a shade of sarcasm, shuffling the cards. I knew he would rather be reading some report, but I had pestered him into entertaining me. “You might want to work on your poker face, though.”

            “Who needs a poker face when you have fantastic luck?” I asked dismissively. “And the ability to count cards.”

            He rolled his eyes. “You watch too many movies,” he decided. “Another round?” He did not seem especially enthusiastic.

            “No,” I judged. “You have fulfilled your duties admirably.”

            “Thanks.”

            I spun back and forth in my seat a couple times. “Where’d Pepper go? It’s her turn to amuse me.”

            Obadiah glanced up from the report he had already started. “Good luck with that. I think she’s pretty p----d off at you.”

            “Still?”

            “Yes, _still_ , Tony,” he agreed dryly. “We’ve only been up here for half an hour.”

            “J---s, she can hold a grudge,” I commented.

            “Not everybody has the attention span of a hamster, you know.”

            “Sorry, what?” I looked away from the window and back at Obadiah. “There was a cloud out there that looked _just_ like Luigi. From Super Mario Brothers?”

            For some reason this remark only made Obadiah sigh. “Sometimes, I think you being on drugs might be an improvement.”

            “I would probably be quieter,” I agreed, “except for the projectile vomiting.” I pushed the intercom button to the cockpit. “Page Pepper. Tell her to come to the front of the plane.”

            Obadiah immediately pushed his own button. “Cancel that page.”

            “ _Yes, sir_ ,” the pilot agreed.

            I glared at Obadiah. “It’s not _that_ big a plane, Tony,” he told me. “Go find her yourself. If she’ll speak to you.”

            “Why wouldn’t she speak to me? She’s getting a free trip to Vegas.”

            “Tony, sometimes I can’t tell if you merely speak without thinking, or if you’re actually an idiot,” he responded.

            “Multiple lines of evidence would suggest the former,” I decided. “Anyway, I don’t see why you’re looking down your nose at me. You do sneaky, manipulative things to get your way all the time.”

            Obadiah gave me a look. “Those things have never included kidnapping.”

            “So far.” Finally I stood up and looked over the seats, then sat back down. “Pepper’s with Joanna at the back.”

            “That’s a relief. I thought she might have snuck out when you weren’t looking.”

            “What do you suppose they’re talking about?”

            “Make-up tips. How should I know?” he snapped, getting a bit impatient. “Didn’t you say I was done entertaining you?”

            “I hope it’s not make-up tips,” I replied, ignoring the last part of his comment. “I don’t want Pepper to come out looking like a hooker.”

            Obadiah glared at me over the top of the report. “My assistant does not look like a hooker.” There was a touch of a growl in his tone.

            “Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” I replied. “Tammy Faye at least.”

            “Joanna does not—“ He paused to consider this. “Well, you may have a point there.”

            “Her make-up bag alone must weigh at least thirty pounds,” I continued companionably. “Have one of your secretaries mention it to her, in a maternal way. Or one of mine.”

            He narrowed his eyes at me. “That’s shockingly sensitive, coming from you, Tony.”

            I shrugged. “It’s the only way to avoid getting slapped,” I pointed out. “Eye make-up is a delicate topic for women.”

            “Yes, men are so much more direct about their eye make-up issues,” he replied dryly.

            Which, of course, reminded me of the time—“Hey, remember when I was in that Goth phase and kept going to all those clubs in my black leather pants and eyeliner?” I reminisced happily.

            “You mean last week?”

            “Ha ha.” Try ten years. “I should do that again sometime.”

            “Please don’t,” Obadiah pleaded flatly. “The press has more than enough pictures of you in a mesh shirt and dog collar.”

            I snickered. “Hey, Pepper!” I suddenly shouted, making Obadiah jump. “Get up here! I need you to be my Goth vampire babe!”

            For a moment I thought she really wasn’t going to respond to my summons, at which I was prepared to yell again, only louder. But then I saw her slowly making her way down the aisle towards me. She still didn’t look happy. “Yes, Mr. Stark?” she asked.

            I winced at her tone. “Could you get me a drink, Pepper? But don’t bother to put ice in it, just hold it in your hand for a minute.”

            She passed my request on to the flight attendant, only _with_ ice. “Anything else, sir?”

            “Yes. Sit down.” She sat. There was silence. “Oh, come on, Pepper. Don’t be so juvenile. What, are you gonna pout because you didn’t get your way?” Okay, admittedly she wasn’t pouting, she was just poking at her phone with her default blank expression. And ignoring me. “Pepper! You’ll like Vegas this time, I promise. We’ll go to the convention and see a lot of cool gadgets. They’re practically like your brethren.”

            “It’s easy to see why women fall for you all the time, Tony,” Obadiah cracked. “Your charm and sensitivity are unparalleled.”

            “Well, I’m not trying to get Pepper in the sack, am I?” I shot back, becoming slightly irritated now. Pepper was not going to be fun if she just sat there like a lump. “Okay, fine,” I decided with ill grace, grabbing a random magazine to read. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I bet it’s hard to pronounce.” I stuck my nose in the magazine.

            “My problem is very easy to pronounce,” Pepper replied evenly. “It has only one syllable.”

            I turned to stare at her as Obadiah raised the report to cover his smirk. That was a relatively severe tongue-lashing from Pepper, in front of someone else anyway. Then I grinned. “Well, if it starts with S-T-A, I’m going to blame Obadiah here.” I relaxed back into my seat with the drink that had magically appeared at my elbow. Pepper still wasn’t looking at me, but I felt the tension had eased somewhat.

            Joanna joined us. “We’ll be landing soon,” she reported.

            “Hey, Joanna, Pepper foolishly didn’t pack anything for this trip,” I began. “Think you guys could hit the shops, pick up a suitable wardrobe? Some new suits and dresses, a few pairs of expensive shoes?” Pepper seemed to be warming to this idea. At least, she gave me a sidelong glance.

            “When Obadiah doesn’t need me,” Joanna agreed. Joanna’s taste was a little too… vibrant for Pepper. But I was confident my lovely assistant could hold her own when it came to fashion. She just needed someone to guide her through the confusing parts, like automatic doors and mannequins.

            “Get a short, sexy cocktail dress,” I specified to Pepper. “If I like it I’ll let you blow on my dice.” Noises of derision met this remark from the passengers in front of me. “What?” I asked innocently. “Should I say, spin my wheel? Pull my lever?”

            “I don’t think you’d want me to do that, Mr. Stark,” Pepper responded, finally looking up at me. “The last time I was in Las Vegas, I broke a lever clean off.”

            That shut me up for the rest of the flight.

            We made it through touchdown and the ride to the hotel without incident. My jokes about Pepper’s luggage being only an itty-bitty bikini in her pocket went over well with our driver. It was when we reached the front steps of the hotel that Pepper began to appear nervous.

            “Isn’t there a back entrance we could use?” she asked, stopping me outside the massive gilt-framed doors.

            “What are you, afraid of the Mob?” I prodded, grabbing her hand. “If we go in the back my legions of screaming fans won’t know I’m here.” Okay, I didn’t have legions of screaming fans (yet). But Obadiah and Joanna were probably wondering what had become of us. Usually I at least checked in before vanishing. “Come on.” I pulled her through the doors and into the lobby.

            You can’t get anywhere in a Vegas hotel without going through at least part of the casino. I thought Obadiah would have made a great casino designer, they’re such masterpieces of manipulation, deception, and confusion—no clocks, no windows, only enough signage to meet safety requirements, dim lighting, free booze. And lots and lots of activity—video slots, reel slots, TV screens, neon signs, all of it blinking and flashing and flaring in a cacophony of light and movement. It took me several seconds to get my bearings, then I finally saw Joanna waving to me from near the elevator at the heart of the beast. She seemed to indicate that she already had my room key, which was good because I had lost sight of the front desk.

            I headed towards her, pulling Pepper along behind me as I wove through the banks of slot machines, inebriated gamblers, and scantily-clad cocktail waitresses. I ended up going the wrong way a couple of times, because the place was also covered in lighted mirrors. Diabolical. After a few moments the arm that reached back to Pepper began to pull more and more as she slowed down. Finally she just stopped, right in the middle of a block of slot machines.

            “Pepper! Pepper, come on,” I prompted, tugging on her arm. There was no response. Pepper stood as still as a statue—and not one of those living statues they have around here that moves when you least expect it. She was frozen, head tilted slightly, staring straight ahead at nothing.

            I shook her shoulder. “Pepper? Can you hear me?” I snapped my fingers in front of her face. No response.

            Then all of a sudden the slot machines around us started going crazy—spinning the reels, spitting out coins, blinking and ringing, even when no one was feeding them. A crowd of people dove to the floor around us, nearly knocking me off my feet as they scrambled for the coins.

            Then Pepper started to twitch—shake and twitch like she was about to fly apart. I didn’t wait to see what the next step was, I just scooped her up—much as I had earlier in the day—and made a run for it.

            “Tony, what the h—l?” Obadiah shouted as I got to the elevator. Alarms were going off all over the place now as more and more slot machines went haywire and casino security moved onto the floor. “What did you _do_?!”

            “Nothing. It’s Pepper.” I tried to set her on her feet but she nearly collapsed.

            “Is she having a seizure?” asked Joanna worriedly.

            I had no idea how to answer that. But that was how it looked, at least. The elevator near us dinged and the doors slid open. “Get in,” Obadiah insisted, hustling us away from the crowd.

            The inside of the elevator was, of course, lined with mirrors. “There’s not enough room for her to lie down,” Joanna judged. “We have to try and keep her from hitting anything.” I gave her a look over Pepper’s shoulder as I tried to keep her arms from jerking into the walls. Joanna seemed very knowledgeable about this. “My sister has epilepsy,” she explained quickly and I nodded. “Be careful, Tony, people in seizures can be surprisingly strong. She might hit you accidentally.” Meanwhile, Obadiah stood out of the way on the far side of the elevator, watching us like we were bugs under a microscope.

            “The most important thing is to stay calm,” Joanna added nervously.

            “I _am_ calm.” And I was. She needn’t have worried about _that_.

            “Do you want me to—“

            “No, I’ve got her.”

            The whole thing probably didn’t last more than sixty seconds. But it felt like hours, standing there in that tiny, bright space trying to hold Pepper up and keep her contained. There was too much she could hit within easy reach, but it was better than staying in the chaos of the casino floor. _Please, Pepper, please calm down_ , I pleaded. _You need to stop. I need you to stop and be okay._

            Before we were even close to ending our ascent I felt her start to quiet down. A moment later she was just leaning limply against me, like a ragdoll. “Pepper? Can you hear me, Pepper?” Slowly she took more of her weight on her own feet and straightened up. “Pepper?”

            She blinked and opened her eyes, looking around in some confusion. “Mr. Stark? Oh, we’re on the elevator…”

            “Are you okay?” I asked her—a stupid question, really, as she obviously wasn’t.

            “Oh. Hmm. Yes, I’m okay,” she decided. “I’m rather hungry, though. Will we be eating soon?” She sounded so much like her normal self I almost couldn’t believe the last two minutes had actually occurred. I leaned back against the wall, suddenly barely able to keep upright myself, but I still kept a hold on her. “Are _you_ alright?” Pepper asked me with concern, putting her hand against my cheek. For once my skin was probably colder than hers.

            “She should lie down as soon as we get to the room,” Joanna instructed. “On her _left_ side. And it’s possible she might throw up, so we have to make sure she doesn’t choke.”

            I nodded. “I’ll make sure.”

            Pepper frowned at me, then turned slightly—which was all I would allow—to frown at Joanna. “I’m not going to throw up,” she told us, sounding mystified by our behavior. “I’m just awfully hungry.”

            “I would wait to feed her,” Joanna hedged. “See what the doctor says first.” Because it was obvious, we were calling a doctor to check her out.

            “I don’t need a doctor,” Pepper insisted. “I’m fine.”

            “Honey, you just had a seizure,” I pointed out. “You’re getting a doctor.”

            “Oh.” She didn’t sound particularly surprised.

            “What’s the last thing you remember?” Joanna questioned.

            “Blinking lights,” Pepper answered thoughtfully. “Too many blinking lights.” She sighed and leaned her head against my shoulder.

            Anger welled up suddenly inside me. “F—k!” I responded, as I slammed one hand so hard against the wall that the mirrored panel shattered into pieces.

            “Tony!” Joanna exclaimed.

            “No, it’s okay,” I assured her, wrapping my arms around Pepper. I didn’t want to upset her any more. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.”

            “You’re getting blood on her suit,” Obadiah observed from his corner.

            “It’s not the first time.” And it wouldn’t be the last, not as long as I kept on being such an incredible f-----g b-----d.

 

            The doctor spent longer picking the mirror glass out of my hand and wrapping it up than he did checking on Pepper. “It’s actually more common than you think,” he was telling me in a soothing, grandfatherly tone. “Some people are just sensitive to the lights and noise. Usually, it’s young children, or older folks with other health problems, but I’ve seen it in plenty of other people, too. Would you say she was especially emotional?”

            “Not really,” I answered flatly.

            Obadiah snorted. “You’re looking at the high-strung one here, Doc.” I gritted my teeth but said nothing.

            Joanna stuck her head around the doorway of the expansive bathroom. “Pepper seems fine. She’s plowing through a chocolate cake and some poached salmon.”

            The doctor raised an eyebrow. “That’s how she usually eats,” Obadiah assured him. “So we don’t need to take either of them to a hospital?”

            “No, I don’t think so,” the doctor judged as he finished bandaging my hand. “You can if you want, of course, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Certainly, you should call right away if there’s any further problems, though. And have the young lady use the back entrance from now on. Maybe Las Vegas isn’t such a good vacation spot for her, hmm?” he offered cheerfully before packing up.

            “Thanks, Doc,” Obadiah told him as he left. He stayed in the doorway a moment longer, watching me where I sat on the edge of the tub. “Hotel manager’s here, Tony,” he finally said, with just the tiniest hint of… something I didn’t like in his tone. Almost like he was vaguely amused by the entire thing. “Probably wants to make sure we aren’t going to sue him.”

            “Well go deal with him, then,” I snapped. Who the h—l was in charge here, anyway? “It happened to her before,” I said suddenly, and he turned back. “I think.”

            I met his gaze, which was cool and calm and not really judgmental at all—but also not very surprised. “Guessed that already, champ,” he replied. “She didn’t want to stay home just to p—s you off. Careful now,” he added, seeing my expression. “You hurt your other hand _now_ , we won’t be able to blame it on the seizure.” I pulled my hand away from the cool surface of the tub and put it in my lap. “Good boy. I’ll go talk to the manager. And I’ll order you an extra bottle of whiskey—I expect you’ll be wanting it later.” Then he left.

            I sat alone in the cold, gleaming white bathroom, letting the chill of the tile and metal and ceramic seep in through my clothes. My hand ached but I had refused the doctor’s offer of a painkiller prescription, which seemed the most surprising part of the whole incident to him. Guess there weren’t a lot of people in this town who turned down a shot at legal narcotics. But I found it safer to make do with a couple Tylenol and a lot of liquor. Assuming I _wanted_ it to stop hurting, of course. Eventually I would. But for right now it seemed—a little too mild to be called fair, but not undeserved.

            “Would you like some cake?” Pepper asked suddenly, walking into the bathroom. “Or some salmon? They’re very good.” She was wearing one of my button-downs and a pair of yoga pants Joanna had brought, which were hot pink and too short. They were planning to hit the upscale malls as soon as Pepper felt up to it, or the dry cleaner had gotten the blood out of the one suit she had here, or I gave the okay, whichever came last. Wonder which it would be.

            “You’re supposed to be resting,” I pointed out, letting her sit on my lap. It made the icy edge of the tub cut into the back of my thighs even more.

            “I feel fine,” she assured me. One hand lingered on the back of my neck. “How’s your hand?”

            I shrugged. “Fine. No breaks, no stitches.” We sat in silence for a minute. “You didn’t tell me it was _that_ bad,” I commented, quietly.

            “Well, I didn’t really remember,” she answered, as though it were no big deal. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

            ‘Scare’ was putting it mildly. I hadn’t fully processed it all yet. But when I had, there was a good chance I might freak out and burn the hotel down. “No, I’m sorry I made you come,” I told her. “You can go home whenever you want. Maybe tomorrow morning, after you’ve gotten some sleep. Or now, if you want—“

            She smiled at me, which was something I didn’t deserve right then. “I think you would just mope the rest of the trip.”

            “Pepper, you can’t stay here,” I insisted. “This place is dangerous for you. Everywhere you go will be like—“

            “Not _everywhere_ ,” she countered. “I’ll be careful.”

            “That’s a really stupid idea.”

            “Well, we’ll just pretend it was one of yours.” I grinned suddenly—somehow it didn’t sound cutting and spiteful when _she_ said something like that. “Come and have something to eat.”

            “Chocolate cake and poached salmon isn’t my favorite combination.”

            “We can order a pizza,” she tempted.

            All at once I was starving—it was more or less lunch time, anyway. “Let’s get black olives on it,” I suggested. “Obadiah _hates_ black olives.”

* * *


End file.
